City of Fort Myers dumped toxic sludge in Dunbar

The city bought the land in 1962 for 'municipal purposes' a place to dump the sludge from its water treatment While people were building homes in the neighborhood, it was dumping waste. For more than 40 years, no one knew the waste contained arsenic.
Andrea Melendez and Patricia Borns/news-press.com

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The contaminated city land known as Home-a-rama contains an estimated 25,000.0 cubic yards of arsenic impacted soil from sludge buried in pits in the 1960s on this residential block bounded by Henderson and Midway Avenues and South and Jeffcott Streets in the historically African American neighborhood of Dunbar. The city dumped it there over 50 years ago, and it's still there.(Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)Buy Photo

Imagine you bought a home in a residential Fort Myers neighborhood overlooking a block of green space – City View Park has a nice ring to it, right?

Then imagine, instead of furnishing the landscape with royal palms, the city buries waste from its water treatment plant there. Pits of sludge containing toxic arsenic. And it stays there for years.

In 1962 the city advertised in The News-Press its intent to buy vacant lots for "municipal purposes" in the area bounded by Henderson and Midway Avenues and Jeffcott and South Streets; a historically African-American neighborhood of Dunbar.

The municipal purpose: to dump an estimated 25,000 cubic yards of sludge in pits dug deeper than the water table.

The contaminated city land known as Home-a-rama contains an estimated 25,000.0 cubic yards of arsenic impacted soil from sludge buried in pits in the 1960s on this residential block bounded by Henderson and Midway Avenues and South and Jeffcott Streets in the historically African American neighborhood of Dunbar. The city dumped it there over 50 years ago, and it's still there.(Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)

“The city did put sludge at that location. We didn’t know it had arsenic then, but we know now,” Public Works Director Richard Moulton acknowledged.

“We didn’t know it had arsenic then, but we know now.”

Richard Moulton, City of Fort Myers public works director

Arsenic in drinking water affects human health and is considered a significant environmental cause of cancer, according to a National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences report.

Higher than acceptable arsenic levels were detected in 2007 as the city explored a project here called Home-a-rama, a showcase of affordable homes. Ten micrograms per liter is the acceptable standard for drinking water. Levels on some parts of the property have ranged from 11 to 22 micrograms per liter.

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Milton "Shorty" Johnson knew not to go near the land across the street from his home in Dunbar because there was "quicksand" there. The quicksand was lime sludge dumped there by the City of Fort Myers in the 1960s -- sludge, it turned out, that was contaminated with arsenic. More than 50 years after the city dumped on the land, it remains unmitigated and unusable.(Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)

“The distribution (of lime sludge) occurred prior to 1993, and was most likely much earlier than that,” said City Manager Saeed Kazemi who as public works director in 2008 assumed responsibility for the site.

Kazemi said the city is committed to excavating and improving the site "one day." His full statement to The News-Press can be read here and at the end of the story.

Lying there for half a century

The toxic sludge sat for decades before it was tested.

Rickey Rogers, 61, grew up in the Dunbar neighborhood and remembers trucks coming in the early 1960s.

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Rickey Rogers grew up fishing and hunting birds on the land known as Home-a-rama in Dunbar. He watched in the 1960s as the City of Fort Myers dumped lime sludge there from its well field. The city only began monitoring groundwater on the site in 2010 to make sure the arsenic doesn't leach into the neighboring water supply. Although the groundwater tests normal, the contamination is still in the ground with no plans to remove it.(Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)

“All of this used to be a big lake,” Rogers waved at the overgrown block near his house. “There were alligators and turtles. We used to fish there. They were big fish, bass and bream.” Stands of cattails hint of the ponds and wetlands that used to cover the area.

“They put everything in there. Sludge, wood,” Rogers recalled.

“They put everything in there. Sludge, wood.”

Rickey Rogers, resident

Others who came more recently to the neighborhood had heard something about the sludge pits, but no one The News-Press spoke with, including Rogers, was aware of their high arsenic content.

In 2008, with Department of Environmental Protection guidance, the city had six wells dug on the Home-a-rama property to assess the groundwater.

“Arsenic contamination has impacted the groundwater on the property exceeding Department criteria,” the agency reported in July of that year.

But regular groundwater testing didn’t commence until two years later because, as a DEP memo explains, “Approximately 700 days elapsed without a written response to our inquiry by the responsible party (the city).”

The DEP didn't require a broader test for other possible toxins.

The wells have since been monitored at gradually decreasing intervals as the chemical shows no sign of leaching to neighboring water supplies. But the arsenic in the soil remains.

Putting children at risk

Generations of neighborhood children have played on the contaminated lots.

During a visit to the contaminated Home-a-rama site in Dunbar in 2006, a Florida Department of Environmental Protection official snapped this photo of a child's toy left in the dirt where the arsenic-laden sludge was buried.

A child's toy snapped by a Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection inspector on a 2006 visit to the contaminated Home-a-rama site in the Dunbar neighborhood of Fort Myers.(Photo: Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection)

"We played cops and robbers in there, hide and seek, built club houses and played in the trees,” said Shanon Reid, who grew up here in the 1970s in a family of 14. “In certain spots it was like soft clay. We called it orange slag because it was squishy and slimy.”

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Children have played on this vacant city block in Dunbar for generations, their parents never knowing the ground contains lime sludge contaminated with arsenic dumped there in the 1960s by the City of Fort Myers. Although the Dept. of Environmental Protection has overseen a groundwater monitoring program on the site since 2010, the city has no plans to remove the sludge.(Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)

Asked if the Home-a-rama land is safe for kids to play on, public works director Moulton deferred to the DEP.

“We called it orange slag because it was squishy and slimy.”

Shanon Reid, resident

“What would guide me on giving that advice would be the DEP reports. Our DEP information is that it does not pose an environmental or health threat,” Moulton said.

DEP spokeswoman Dee Ann Miller said differently:

“To date, there is no evidence of any offsite impacts (to groundwater),” Miller wrote in an e-mail. “Onsite … direct contact with the sludge should be avoided.”

Learning that children play on the property, the spokeswoman changed her wording: “It is our understanding that the site itself is private property,” she wrote.

After being informed it is city (public) property: “It is our understanding this property is not currently intended by the city to be utilized for public use," she said.

“Onsite … direct contact with the sludge should avoided.”

Dee Ann Miller, Florida DEP spokeswoman

The property is unfenced and unsigned.

Moulton said the city would have made residents aware of the arsenic if the DEP required it, but it did not.

“Notification of surrounding property owners would be required if the contamination went off site,” Miller said.

Path of least expense

In 2010, the DEP advised the city, “Please be aware that to achieve environmental closure … the buried arsenic-impacted sludge is recommended to be excavated and removed.”

The agency wanted the city to start excavating the sludge “at a minimum of four truckloads of impacted soils per month to begin remediation.”

The city protested, “This would not be financially practical … in this economy.”

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Children have played on this vacant city block in Dunbar for generations, their parents never knowing the ground contains lime sludge contaminated with arsenic dumped there in the 1960s by the City of Fort Myers. Although the Dept. of Environmental Protection has overseen a groundwater monitoring program on the site since 2010, the city has no plans to remove the sludge.(Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)

No EPA brownfield money is available to the city for a cleanup because it was responsible for the dumping, Kazemi said; it would require a third party to apply for it.

Rather than remove the sludge, an agreement was struck to test the groundwater for five years, until 2015.

At the end of the period, former city planning director Bob Gardner saw real estate boats rising with the economy, but not in Dunbar, where pollutants were preventing new housing starts. Maybe it was time to remediate, Gardner suggested.

“Why not let new construction raise tax revenues and property values in the neighborhood,” he asked in a memo copying Kazemi. “The site would also make a good park.”

No move was made to replace or cap the contaminated soil. Nothing came of Gardner's suggestions.

What could happen here?

A half-century since the city contaminated it, the public property sits empty, overgrown and unusable.

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The contaminated city land known as Home-a-rama contains an estimated 25,000.0 cubic yards of arsenic impacted soil from sludge buried in pits in the 1960s on this residential block bounded by Henderson and Midway Avenues and South and Jeffcott Streets in the historically African American neighborhood of Dunbar. “ Although the groundwater has been tested since 2010 to make sure the arsenic isn't leaching into drinking water, the soil remains, a playground for children for generations, and the city has no plans to replace or cap it.(Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)

The problem with the land, says Kazemi, isn’t that it's toxic, but that it’s too soft to support a building foundation.

“It is not suited for any construction because of the consistency and compaction of the land,” he said.

As a child watching the sludge being deposited, Rogers said he was reminded of “quick sand." He and his friends threw rocks in it and watched them disappear.

Some years ago a mower sank in one of the pits and had to be pulled out with special equipment, Sharon Rozier, the city’s housing and real estate head, recalls.

Today the city mows the property twice a year and tests it for arsenic every other year. The last groundwater test was normal in September, 2016. The DEP lowered the testing schedule to every other year.

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In the 1960s the City of Fort Myers chose a block in Dunbar to dump sludge from its water treatment plant. It turned out the sludge contained arsenic. Children in the surrounding residential neighborhood have played here for decades. Only in 2010 did the city begin monitoring the groundwater on the site to make sure it doesn't contaminate neighbors'' drinking water. There is no plan to remove the sludge itself due to cost.(Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)

One historically high-testing well was found destroyed, and the DEP told the city it did not have to replace it.

As a result, future tests will be skewed toward the least problematic wells.

Most neighbors The News-Press spoke with were nonchalant about the vacant lots in their midst, but their eyebrows shot up in surprise on learning its history. The reflexive reactions: “My children used to play there.” “My children play there,”

Council members Johnny Streets and Terolyn Watson didn’t respond to News-Press phone calls or email.

Hanging out with his brother and a friend in the Monday twilight, Reid began wondering about the symptoms of arsenic poisoning and its long-term effects

He sat quiet for a moment, turning over a question in his mind.

“I’m wondering why they chose this neighborhood to dump it in,” he said.